PCT Day 173: Canada!

This is the way the trail endsThis is the way the trail endsThis is the way the trail endsNot with a bang…

Canadacanadacanadacanada. Taking down the tarp, shoving everything into my backpack, picking up my trekking poles—one last time. It’s cold—there’s snow and frost covering the ground. It’s early—the dudes camped next to us are sleeping in.

This is the way the trail ends. As we’ve approached these last miles to Canada, we’ve seen familiar hikers headed back south to Harts Pass, the last road access to the trail. Any hiker who doesn’t get—or is denied—the necessary paperwork to enter Canada by trail has to turn around at the border and hike 30 miles back south. Poor bastards.

This is the way the trail ends. We walk through trees, over one last pass. The air is cold, crisp. I can see peaks ahead, bathed in early morning light. Is that Canada? Looking up at those mountains, at the rocky saddle between peaks that I know has a view of everything northward… part of me wants to keep walking. Just keep walking, through all this beauty, without any deadlines other than when the food in my backpack runs out.

The rest of me is ready to finish. I see the arrow-straight clearcut line that marks the border, and that’s where I’m going. This is the way the trail ends.

And then, suddenly—”suddenly” somehow encompassing both the last six miles this morning and the last six months of my life—there’s the monument. Turn a corner, hike down a small hill, and there are the pillars, the little flags, the line through the forest.

We take pictures, write in the log book. Take more pictures. (Canada!) A helicopter passes overhead, patrolling the border.

There are two day hikers there, waiting to meet thru-hiker friends. It’s slightly awkward—they aren’t part of our celebration, they’re talking about workout clothes and brunch. They walked 8 miles from their cars; we walked 2,650.1 miles from freaking Mexico. But it’s ok—we’re almost back in the world where we’re not thru-hikers anymore, where you have to replace your clothes before they’re full of holes and hopelessly discolored with sweat. Where brunch is just overpriced breakfast rather than eating all the things.

Walking last eight miles to Manning Park, the first Canadians we meet are a couple out for a morning hike; they force a fifty dollar bill (Canadian!) on us after hearing what we just did. My parents, who have flown to Vancouver to meet us, are there on the trail when we round a corner. At the road, there’s a crowd waiting for sleeping-in dudes with signs and balloons. Food, car ride, showers, more food… and most of all the strange knowledge that we don’t have to keep walking tomorrow.